[I GAVE UP]Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

[SteveRiley]

Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

Only a --max-depth option , no -d option. Is it because I am on an older Kubuntu (11.04) ?

You know, after your earlier post I checked a variety of places on the Internet that host man pages. Some mention both the -d and --max-depth switches, others mention only --max-depth. du is part of the coreutils package, which is at version 8.5 in Natty and Oneiric but is upgraded to 8.13 in Precise. I'm running Precise on my Mini, so that's where I saw the -d switch.

[werdigo49]

Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

Thanks, everyone, for pursuing this! I haven't tried Steve's cleanup... I don't think I can get to it from that Natty disk and didn't think to look at it while this one (I think it's MM) was still running. Here's the output of "du" (I didn't have a -d switch either). I tried to line them up in Kate (with spaces between thousands and millions) but that didn't exactly survive the copy/paste process.

du --max-depth=1 | sort -g

0 ./proc
0 ./sys
4 ./cdrom
4 ./mnt
4 ./selinux
4 ./srv
8 ./.config
8 ./.kde
16 ./lost+found
16 ./tmp
740 ./dev
776 ./root
6 740 ./bin
9 300 ./sbin
12 096 ./etc
52 388 ./boot
261 500 ./lib
329 692 ./var
1 295 924 ./opt
2 361 088 ./usr
8 452 264 ./home
535 151 137 ./media
547 933 713 .

Compared to Vinny's, ./media jumps out: his was 4K, mine's 535G. I have a 2T disk, with two 1T partitions, each of which is about half full; that's the two ~540G's at the bottom, no doubt. But that shouldn't show as contents of ./media, should it?

[SteveRiley]

Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

The last entry in the column, the one labeled "dot", is actually the disk usage of whatever directory you're sitting in. Since you ran it from the root, effectively it shows the amount of space used by all file systems that hang off the root.

Remember that --max-depth starts at 0. Try:

du --max-depth=0

And you'll see a one-line result: the dot. --max-depth=1 means "display the usage of all directories one level below my current directory and also the usage of my current directory."

In your case, you aren't seeing two separate ~540 GB partitions. Whatever you've mounted on /media is consuming about 535 GB; your remaining filesystem(s) is(are) about 12 GB.

Would you show us the full output of the df command?

[werdigo49]

Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

Steve,

du --max-depth=0
780 .
root@AMD2400:~#

...and here's the df output, copied from the Natty console by hand, typed into Kate, and copy/paste'd here. Maybe there's a way to do it within Natty using vi, but I didn't have the commands available. These things lined up in Kate, but that didn't survive copy/paste. One_Reiserfs and Two_Ext4 are the two partitions on the 2T SATA disk; disk-1 is my main data-backup disk, a 250G SATA. Maybe sdb is a 40G disk; / is about 14G, /home 24G, and of course a little was set as swap.

Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on

/dev/sdb1 14 418 532 13 796 612 0 100% /
none 762 176 740 761 436 1% /dev
none 771 424 0 771 424 0% /dev/shm
none 771 424 88 771 336 1% /var/run
none 771 424 0 771 424 0% /var/lock
/dev/sda1 511 984 368 256 512 832 255 471 536 51% /media/One_Reiserfs
/dev/sda2 503 964 904 86 855 372 391 509 532 19% /media/Two_Ext4
/dev/sdc5 204 789 584 182 400 268 22 389 316 90% /media/disk-1
/dev/sdb6 24 686 856 8 461 168 16 225 688 35% /home

[SteveRiley]

Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

To get monospace text, select the portion you want and click the little typewriter in the KFN forum post editor. I edited your post to add the codes around the text, but left everything else unchanged.

Looks like you ran your du --max-depth=0 from /root rather than /

The sum of the amounts in the "used" column is 548,027,080 and the sum of the three volumes on /media is 525,768,472, both of which are similar to your earlier reported values. (du and df often report slightly different values; Google "du vs df" to learn why.

So I'm curious about something. You mention the 2 TB disk that contains the two partitions. Are you sure the entire disk is being used? Based on what I see below, /dev/sda -- the disk in question -- contains two partitions, /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2, each around 500 MB. That's only 1 TB. Where's your other TB?

Let's take a look at:

parted -l /dev/sda
fdisk -l /dev/sda

[werdigo49]

Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

Quick reply, without having inserted the Natty disk again: I wasn't sure how I would want to use this huge 2T disk, so I only formatted half of it --- one reiserfs and one ext4 partition.

I'll du the /, rather than /root, when I get back on that Natty disk.

EXCITING NEWS: I'm editing this post using my NATTY disk! I was running the console as root to do the df/du stuff, and tried typing "startx", and up came the root desktop! (There was a low-space warning but I didn't know what to delete.)

Here's the requested report:

du --max-depth=0
547,941,668

[werdigo49]

Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

As requested, here's the PARTED output. Kubuntu Natty is installed on the 41G Maxtor disk, sdb.

root@AMD24000:~# parted -l /dev/sda
Model: ATA WDC WD20EARS-00M (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 2000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 524GB 524GB primary reiserfs boot
2 524GB 1049GB 524GB primary ext4


Model: ATA Maxtor 4D040H2 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 41.0GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 32.3kB 15.0GB 15.0GB primary ext4 boot
2 15.0GB 41.0GB 26.0GB extended
5 15.0GB 15.7GB 699MB logical linux-swap(v1)
6 15.7GB 41.0GB 25.3GB logical reiserfs


Model: ATA MDT MD2500JB-00R (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 250GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 32.3kB 210GB 210GB extended
5 64.5kB 210GB 210GB logical reiserfs
2 210GB 250GB 40.3GB primary reiserfs


Model: ST96812A (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdd: 60.0GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 32.3kB 53.5GB 53.5GB primary reiserfs
3 54.0GB 60.0GB 6004MB primary fat32


...and here's the FDISK output:

root@AMD24000:~# fdisk -l /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00069052

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 63742 512000000 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 63742 127483 512000000 83 Linux
root@AMD24000:~#

I don't know if this will help, but I think my problems started when I was trying to clean up some of my backup data disks by "moving to trash" some large folders. The message "trash bin is full, empty trash manually" appeared several times. Right-clicking on Trash and choosing "Empty trash bin" didn't always seem to work.

[SteveRiley]

Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

I don't know if this will help, but I think my problems started when I was trying to clean up some of my backup data disks by "moving to trash" some large folders. The message "trash bin is full, empty trash manually" appeared several times. Right-clicking on Trash and choosing "Empty trash bin" didn't always seem to work.

Right... honestly I had become kind of curious how your disks were configured, based some of the output you showed earlier.

To return to the question at hand... your Trash is behaving correctly now, yes?

[werdigo49]

Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

Yes, Trash seems to be fine now. I can right-click on a file and select "Move to Trash," see that file in "Trash," choose "Empty Trash," and watch it disappear.

I sincerely apologize for not thinking to mention this "no more room in Trash" problem sooner! It now seems obvious that it was the source of my problem. But where's the 8G or so of junk in the / partition? If I could find it, maybe I could get rid of it!

PS: Posted running Natty as root.

[werdigo49]

Re: Can't boot: can't write to /tmp, etc.

Just for the record, I gave up on this. I just couldn't track down the 8G of junk that was filling my Natty / partition.

I burned an iso of Oneiric and have installed it on the old Natty disk instead. Still having a couple of issues with it, but that's a subject for a different board!